Honoring the contributions of Catholic schools.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 23) honoring the contributions of Catholic schools.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 23.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 23, offered by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy). This resolution increases the awareness of Catholic education, while honoring the contributions of America's Catholic schools. They are dedicated to not only educating their students academically but to developing their moral, intellectual, physical, and social values.

January 30 through February 5, 2005, is Catholic Schools Week, an annual tradition in its 31st year, and jointly sponsored by the National Catholic Education Association, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as well. The purpose of this resolution and Catholic Schools Week is to celebrate the vital role Catholic elementary and secondary schools play in providing a values-added education with high standards of quality and excellence to millions of American children.

As President George W. Bush noted last year, ``Catholic educators share the basic conviction that every child can learn,'' which is the grounding principle behind the No Child Left Behind Act.

And these schools continue to demonstrate their faith in every student and commitment to excellence with overwhelming results. According to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic schools have a graduation rate over 99 percent, and about 97 percent of Catholic high school graduates go on to post-secondary training at 4- year colleges, community colleges, or technical schools.

As a proud product of Catholic education from elementary school through my college years at Xavier University, I have found that my foundation in Catholic education has helped me to strengthen my sense of purpose in life and prepared me to help achieve my goals. My own State of Ohio has more than 500 Catholic schools, including my high school alma mater, Moeller High School, in Cincinnati. In Ohio, Catholic schools serve more than 167,000 students, including more than 51,000 students attending 134 Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.

So I appreciate the great work being done by Catholic schools, their administrators and teachers, as well as their parents and volunteers. Catholic schools carry out their servant mission by building the academic achievement, character, and values of their students. I commend the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy) for introducing this resolution and urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy), the sponsor of the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Boustany), a new member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy), the sponsor of this resolution. I congratulate Catholic Schools all across America for their contribution to our country and pay particular attention today to a group right here in Washington, DC, the City Center Consortium that represents 13 Catholic Schools here in the poorest areas of Washington, DC, where arguably the children need a chance at a decent education more than almost anywhere in America.

These 13 Catholic Schools and these poor communities here in town were threatened to be closed a few years ago, and an organization was set up to try to bring funding to keep these schools open. They happened to be about 95 percent minorities and about almost 90 percent non-Catholic; and having these schools available in these communities has been, I think, a major effort at giving these children here in town, here in Washington, DC, a real chance at a quality education.

I have worked closely with the City Center Consortium for the last 3 or 4 years. They are to be congratulated along with all Catholic Schools across the country in this week of their celebration of Catholic Schools week.

With that, I urge my colleagues to support the resolution, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), minority leader.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Rothman).

(Mr. ROTHMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I want to join my colleagues and the sponsors of this resolution and my chairman, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), from the committee in congratulating and celebrating the contributions of Catholic Schools and certainly their theme of this year which is ``Faith in Every Student.'' It is something that those of us who have attended Catholic Schools understand is at the very core of Catholic education. Not only is it the faith in every student, but it is the dignity of every one of us as God's children, recognizing whether they be poor, whether they be rich, whether they be working or unemployed, whether they be young or old, each of us carries with us a dignity given to us by God and recognizing our responsibility to one another.

As the Catholic Schools have told us very often, we cannot operate in a solitary world. We must operate within the community. And operating within the community has taught us, those of us who have gone to that school and certainly many of us who have not, that we have obligations. We have obligations to reach down and give a hand up to people who need it. We have an obligation to put our arm around somebody who is in need of comforting and stabilizing in a time of crises. These are the basic tenets that you learn in Catholic School.

When you learn that in Catholic School, hopefully you are able to carry it through the rest of your life. I know, as one who has spent most of my life in public service, have recognized those tenets when I have been engaged in the problems of families at risk and children at risk. When I was chair of the Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families in this Congress, we spent a great deal of time with Catholic organizations talking about what do we do for the very young, what do we do for the adolescents. It was the Catholic Church that said, if you are going to start this committee, it was going to be the committee on children and families. They insisted that youth be in the title of that committee because they said, for far too often, public policy has been afraid to confront and discuss and try to deal with the problems of adolescents and teenagers at risk and the kinds of policies that this Congress could call into play and that this Nation could use to help those young people as they go through a troubling time in their life and a challenging time in their life and a risky time in their life.

That turn out to be the right move. That turned out to be the right contribution as we had the opportunity to try and see what we could do to better support those young people.

Many of my colleagues and all of us are very proud of our time in Catholic Schools. In the Miller families, Catholic Schools run very deep, from my grandfather, to my father, to my sisters who went to Saint Catherine's, to myself who went to Bellermine High School under the Jesuits. My one son went to Gonzaga and another to De La Salle and to my grandchildren who are at Holy Trinity in Sacramento. We understand the importance of this education. We understand the importance of the moral education and what we can take away from our time in Catholic School, what our grandchildren can take away.

That is why we rise on this floor to support and to congratulate the Catholic Schools and the contributions that they make to American society, an important contribution to American society, recognizing our obligations to one another to create a community where each and every one of us has the opportunity to thrive, and recognizing so very often that sometimes people are not thriving and that sometimes it is almost through no fault of their own and we have an obligation to help those individuals also.

Mr. Speaker, I extend my congratulations to the Catholic Schools in recognition of their contributions.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I grew up as a minority; not in the traditional sense, but as an Irish Catholic in the land of Scandinavian Lutherans. The option of attending Catholic schools was not really available to my family, until we attended

college. When that time came, my parents sent all seven of their children to the nearby Catholic Benedictine schools of St. John's University and the College of St. Benedict, a formidable feat given my father's salary from the local small-town insurance agency.

My first real encounter with Catholic elementary and secondary students was my interactions with the graduates from Catholic schools that I went to school with at St. John's. I was universally impressed by the quality of these students. They were not only well prepared for college, but they were friendly to a country hick like me. They were courteous, kind, respectful, caring. They say that you can tell a tree by its fruits. By this measure, I assumed Catholic schools must be great.

Then I sat in on a conversation in a dorm room with three graduates of Catholic high schools reminiscing on their high school experience. One of these students was so cynical about his Catholic education that I resolved never to send my children to Catholic school. Well, it turns out the cynical student became a priest, and so I changed my mind. Catholic schools really do nurture one's faith.

My next exposure to Catholic schools came when I attended graduate business school. We did a case study on a sports program there for a Catholic high school, and I will never forget how the room erupted into laughter when a fellow student proposed a solution that assumed that the Catholic schools would not be able to afford to invest in their extracurricular activities. Indeed, my fellow students already knew what I learned: that Catholic schools have great extracurricular programs, not just in sports, but in music, theater, math league, speech team, and much more.

My wife Debbie and I have four wonderful children. They have been able to experience the best of both worlds. They all graduated from Watertown Mayer Public Middle School and experienced the great public education that my wife and I received in Minnesota, but they also chose to attend Catholic high schools and get not just a great education, but be able to talk about how God influences the world around us and history as well.

We are pleased to see that they were nurtured in the Catholic spirit of helping others. They participate in many programs to help those in need. My daughter organized a food drive for Mary's Place, an outreach for the needy while she was at Holy Family Catholic High School. Emily collected enough from her fellow students to fill up our van.

They have kept that spirit alive even after graduating from high school and going on to college. Our son Charles, a graduate of St. John's Prep School, led a group of students from the University of Notre Dame to lend a hand in Appalachia last spring break, forgoing the more pleasurable trip further south. Catholic schools really do teach students to care.

Catholic schools provide a great education to 2.5 million students across America and have a student-teacher ratio that averages 15 to 1. I can attest to a quality education with two of our children now attending the University of Notre Dame. More than 26 percent of the students enrolled in Catholic schools are from minority backgrounds, and nearly 14 percent are non-Catholics. Catholic schools have done an extraordinary job of reaching out to disadvantaged youth throughout the country.

This week has been designated as Catholic Schools Week. The theme for Catholic Schools Week this year is ``Faith in Every Student.'' Tomorrow is National Appreciation Day for Catholic Schools, and I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting my resolution that commends our Catholic schools and the teachers, parents, and religious communities that support them for their service to our Nation's youth.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and commend the distinguished Chair of the committee and the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), ranking member, for bringing this very important resolution to the floor today.

I am proud to rise to recognize the vital contributions of America's Catholic schools in our country, and I want to say right off from the start what my bias is in this area. My husband and I and our five children have attended over 100 years of Catholic school education, over 100 years of Catholic school education. There are about 6 years of Episcopal in there over and above, but 100 years of Catholic school education. So, needless to say, we worship at the shrine of the Catholic educational system in our country.

There are nearly 8,000 Catholic schools in America, and they educate nearly 2.5 million students every year. We solute Catholic schools for their dedication to educating the next generation of Americans and for their success in doing so. The education Catholic schools provide is exceptional and a true asset to our educational system. Catholic schools contribute not only to a student's intellectual development, and they do that very well, but also to a student's ethical and spiritual development. In short, they have a value-added component, values.

The theme of this year's Catholic Schools Week says it well: ``Faith in every student.'' That means faith in the promise of every child and the promise to deepen every child's faith. As a devout Roman Catholic and a product of Catholic schools, as I said, 100 years my husband and I and our five children, this resolution is personal to me. I rely every day on the values, the confidence, and the sense of responsibility that were deepened for me by a Catholic education and being raised in a family that was the product of Catholic education as well. I know that many Members can make that statement.

My Catholic education helped me appreciate the gift of faith and the conviction that we all contain a spark of divinity and to recognize that spark of divinity in every person we encounter. It nurtured in me a commitment to community and to public service.

The Bible teaches us that to minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us. That lesson should inform every debate we have here in Congress, whether it is education, health care, job creation, or the budget, which should be a statement of our national values.

As President Kennedy said so eloquently in his inaugural address, ``With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking his blessing and his help but knowing that here on earth, God's work must truly be our own.''

Our Catholic schools prepare generation after generation for that critical task, and they deserve our national gratitude.

I join my colleagues in thanking all of the teachers, parents, and students at Catholic schools who make our country better.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H. Res. 23, a resolution that honors the contributions of Catholic schools and supports the goals of Catholic Schools Week.

The many accomplishments of Catholic schools and their positive impact on students and communities throughout the nation is evident in the Fifth Congressional District of Illinois, where schools such as St. Pascal Elementary, St. Bartholomew Elementary and Gordon Technical High School provide a quality education while instilling values that will serve their students throughout their lives. These schools provide strong academic curricula and promote significant parental involvement. They teach students the importance of academic achievement while also providing a balanced perspective on life that promotes responsibility, justice and social service.

Catholic schools also promote ethnic and racial diversity. An increasing number of children in Catholic schools in my district come from our minority communities. Students in Catholic schools achieve exceptionally high graduation rates, and an increasing number are advancing to college and giving back to the community through volunteer service.

Catholic schools foster more than scholastic excellence alone. They provide spiritual guidance to students by encouraging fundamental ideals and an appreciation for family values, community service, and faith in their own lives. This, in turn, shapes Catholic school students into leaders of tomorrow.

I want to take this opportunity to applaud the recent accomplishments of the 2005 ``Heart of the School'' award winners. Each year, the Archdiocese of Chicago Catholic Schools presents these awards to recognize outstanding and innovative accomplishments of individual teachers at Archdiocese of Chicago schools.

I am very proud that four of these award winners currently teach at Catholic schools in my district. Kevin Carroll of St. Patrick High School was recognized for his contribution to Arts Education, Marilyn Ann Skowron of Guerin College Preparatory was recognized for Innovation and Creativity, and both Kevin L. Booth of Notre Dame High School for Girls and Christopher E. Perez of St. Patrick High School were recognized for Leadership. I thank these outstanding educators as well as all of the dedicated Catholic school teachers in my district for their devotion to their students and for setting the standard for teaching excellence.

Mr. Speaker, I support H. Res. 23 and encourage Catholic schools in my district and across the United States to continue contributing to the development of strong moral, intellectual and social values in America's young people. I thank the National Catholic Educational Association and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for their sponsorship of Catholic Schools Week.